GE DV1 Camcorder Review

Low Light Sensitivity

Ultracompact camcorders often surprise us with good low light sensitivity scores, but the GE DV1 was not a camcorder that excelled in this area. The DV1 needed 16 lux of light to output video at levels that peaked at 50 IRE on our waveform monitor. Like many of the DV1's scores, this low light performance isn't terrible, but it certainly isn't good. More on how we test low light sensitivity.

The other ultracompact camcorders we compared the DV1 to did quite a bit better in this test. Particularly impressive is the 5 lux performance from the Kodak Playsport Zx3 (which, like the DV1, is also waterproof). The DV1's lens is fixed with a f/2.8 aperture, which isn't the widest f-stop, and may be one of the reasons the camcorder didn't do so well in this test.

Low Light Noise

Noise was the only test where the GE DV1 did significantly better than the competition. This was the case in bright light, and it was also the case in low light, where the camcorder measured 0.4% noise. This is roughly half as much noise as the Kodak Playsport Zx3 measured in this same test. More on how we test low light noise.

In the crops above you can see that the DV1's low light image is a bit brighter than some of the competition, but it still did worse overall in our low light sensitivity test. As was the case in our bright light testing, the GE DV1 produced a video image that was not very sharp. The other ultracompact camcorders we compared it to also had trouble producing a sharp image in low light, although we thought the JVC GC-WP10 looked even worse.

Low Light Color

The GE DV1 struggled in our low light color test, just as the camcorder had problems with color accuracy in bright light. In the low light test, however, the DV1 did not benefit from any of its white balance preset modes. Using auto white balance, the camcorder registered a color error of 8.54 and a saturation level of 96.61%. More on how we test low light color.